


reality.

by Liberte_Egalite_Broadway



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Canon Queer Relationship, Carlos is a Good husband, Cecil is Mostly Human, Crying, Depressed Cecil Palmer, Emotional Baggage, Episode: e108 Cal, Existential Crisis, He just has a lot of existential crises, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Night Vale: Desert Queertopia, Protective Carlos, Sad Ending, There is a lot of crying in this fic, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, all hail the glow cloud, also lots of hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15445485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway/pseuds/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway
Summary: "I don't know what's real," his boyfriend laughed. // "I don't know what's real," his husband sobs.





	reality.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to see a tryout of the new live show in August before they start the tour, and I am so excited I can't even tell you. 
> 
> Episode 108 is one of the hardest for me to listen to, because I have a lot in common with Cecil, and the threat of being closeted from someone close is a reality that I actually do live in. But the episode is fascinating, and so I decided to delve into it and project my emotional crises onto the poor Palmer husbands. RIP. 
> 
> Please leave a review!

"You're always talking about such deep stuff on the radio," Carlos observed one night, after the broadcast has wrapped up and science had been put on standby and the two of them were watching the sunset. The sun decided to set late that day, and was fading into the distance. Carlos wasn't sure why, so he'd texted a few of the other scientists to ask them if they'd mind investigating. 

"Oh?" said Cecil. The light of the purple sunset (another outlier - sunsets were usually just normal orange around here) silhouetted him, making his hair and skin shimmer. Or maybe that was natural. A lot of things that shouldn't have been natural were natural about Cecil. "Like what?"

Carlos shrugged. "Like life, and death, and all of the intangible things that we cannot comprehend but desire to anyway. It's fascinating to listen to, but it also makes me concerned for you." 

"Why?" 

"Well because..." 

Cecil smiled expectantly and Carlos ducked his head to look at the ground. This was when things got difficult. When he tried to talk about how he felt. He could rattle off equations and explain observations, but describing how he actually  _felt_ about something was so, so much harder. Maybe because no one had ever actually cared to care about how he felt about things.

That was what fascinated him about Night Vale; why he decided to stay even after half of his team fled town on the first day. The people lived under the rule of a totalitarian government, but they cared so deeply about everything and about nothing. They looked out for one another while simultaneously ignoring the devastating earthquakes that happened every day. They affirmed the existence of other people while also denying the existence of obviously real angels. (In the distance, he heard the 'angel acknowledged!' siren go off as the Sheriff's monitors heard his thought.) 

"Because it seems like you're having some kind of existential crisis, I guess," said Carlos finally. "And, I mean, that is fine because you're human - at least, I think you're human - and humans struggle with existence all the time, but from a scientific point of view it's not healthy to go through that kind of thing on a daily basis, you know? So I worry about you because I really really love you and I don't want you to be having crisises. Er, crises." He took a deep breath.

Cecil watched him with his attentive purple eyes. The sunset behind was the same color, giving the effect that the sunset had bled through him and was now shimmering in his face. It was both gorgeous and disconcerting. "You're so sweet!" he said, smiling. "But you don't have to worry about me. Everybody struggles with existence, and I decided not to struggle with that struggle. I exist as much as anyone does, and no one really knows how much that is. So, I've accepted that. Life and death are a part of life and death." 

The sunset shrieked suddenly, briefly interrupting their conversation. 

"So why don't you worry about your interns?" asked Carlos once the shrieking stopped.  

Cecil blinked. "Why should I worry about them? They're getting a lot of free college credits." 

"Well, they keep dy-"

"Life and death are a part of life and death," Cecil repeated, and Carlos decided not to press the matter any further. 

"So do you... worry about that?" he asked instead. "Death? I do, sometimes." 

"Well, everyone does  _sometimes_ ," Cecil observed. "It's required by the city council. People who don't worry about death at least once a month are carried to the nearest urgent care center by a flock of predatory birds and given medication." 

"Oh." 

They fell into silence, and eventually Cecil wrapped both of his arms around one of Carlos's and leaned on his shoulder. 

"Does it ever worry you, how big the universe is and how small we are?" Carlos asked quietly. "And how little we understand? Even with science." 

"Sometimes," Cecil answered, also quietly. He grinned and looked up. "But there's so much that's beautiful in what we don't understand."

Carlos smiled, and as the sun set with its purple glow around them and his heart beat a little faster he pulled Cecil close. 

"This fascinates you, huh?" he asked, to an answering nod. 

"I don't know what's real," his boyfriend laughed. 

 

///

 

Now Carlos sits in his office at home - their home - writing equations on a sheet of graph paper. The memory of that sunset long ago flickers across his mind, making him smile. Which is good, because this one particular equation has had him frowning for the past few minutes. He narrows his eyes behind his glasses, since none of the equations are working out the way he expected, and then draws a chemical formula for monoxic diglyceride to see if that might help. It doesn't, but it makes him feel better. 

He can hear Cecil talking in the other room, but to who he can't tell. The strange thing is that his voice sounds far away, even though their house isn't especially big. Like it's coming from across a busy highway, or deep underwater. Carlos considers getting up to go check on him, but every time he's about to the equations catch his attention again and draw him back.

There's a loud crash suddenly, and he stands up. A moment later there is the ripping sound that signifies another piece of the sky is gone. "Cecil?" Carlos shouts. No response. He waits, but doesn't hear anything. "Cecil, are you okay?" He goes to the door, but as he lays a hand on the knob, the door swings open from the other side, and he steps back as Cecil steps into the office. 

"Carlos?" Cecil's voice is soft, indistinct. 

"Hi babe, who were you talking to?" 

Cecil's eyes rest on the floor. Carlos is surprised to see that they are full of tears. "I was talking to my brother." 

Confusion flickers across the scientist's mind. "You don't have a brother." 

"I know." 

Cecil throws his arms around Carlos suddenly and sobs. Carlos, surprised and alarmed, brings his arms up around him as Cecil's hands cling to him. 

"Sweetie, what happened?" 

"I-I don't know. I don't know what happened. I think it was one of the other realities, but... it-it's starting to fade out of my mind."  

"Okay, what do you remember?" 

"I..." Cecil's hands clutch at the back of his lab coat. He's shaking badly, and judging from the position of his head, he seems to be staring at a fixed point on the wall over Carlos' shoulder. "There was a man, and I knew him, even though I had never seen him before. He was my brother in another reality... Cal. And..." 

Cecil's tone shifts on the last word, and Carlos pulls back to look at him. 

"What?"

"You weren't here." 

"Cecil, I've been here the whole time." Confusions and questions have pushed the equation fully out of his mind and are now chasing each other around. How is it possible that someone could be here and also not be? How could someone who does not exist walk into their home? More importantly, what could possibly have happened to scare Cecil this much? Cecil is hardly ever fazed by anything. And yet here he stands, crying. Carlos tries to remember the last time he saw Cecil cry. Their wedding, of course, but that was different. That didn't come with shaking sobs and dry heaving breaths and panic flickering inside of his huge purple eyes. "Is that man - is Cal still here?" 

Cecil shakes his head. "No. He just vanished. He was here, and then... he wasn't."

"Did he leave, or did he disappear?"

"I don't remember. I can barely remember. But you weren't here, and I couldn't - I knew you  _should be_ here, but I... I couldn't remember you. I couldn't find you. I had never met you, and I wasn't married to you, I..." He breaks off and buries his face in his hands. Carlos pulls him close again. 

"Did he hurt you?" he asks. Cecil nods into his shoulder, and for a second Carlos considers going out into the street and walking through one of the rips into that other reality. That man hurt Cecil. No one hurts his Cecil and gets away with it. But the second passes (feeling, as seconds often do, like a full minute), and Cecil continues to cry quietly into the shoulder of his lab coat, grounding him to this moment, and this reality. 

"I realized what was going on," says Cecil eventually, with effort. "I... I think I tried to tell him about Abby. About the fact that I do not actually have a brother. But as I tried to tell him all of those things, I realized that I  _did_ remember having a brother. I remembered, stealing hood ornaments, and meeting his girlfriend - I think her name was Bethany." He makes a small strangled noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, the kind of noise people make when they cannot find words to express the feelings brought on by chemical imbalances, increased adrenaline rates, and a sped-up heartbeat. Feelings that can range from fear to sorrow to emptiness depending on the variations in those factors. "He asked me if  _I_ had a girlfriend, and I remembered that I was supposed to be married, but that wasn't my reality in that moment. And then I realized that in this reality, Cal..." Cecil shakes his head again and presses his face against Carlos' shoulder. "He... I couldn't tell him I was - and I - I was so, so scared, all my life, in that reality - even then, even though I  _knew_ it wasn't real, even then I was so scared, and you weren't there, you weren't there..." 

Cecil starts sobbing again. Carlos tightens his arms around him, staring at the open door leading to the hall. "I'm here now," he starts to say, but even as the vibrations forming language leave his mouth he realizes what little comfort that is.

What is now? What is here? These are the questions Cecil loves to wax about on the radio, the ones that bury themselves in people's brains and nag, demanding attention. At any second, a new reality could walk right through that open door. It could start up, like flicking on a light switch. It could take them apart again. 

So instead, he says other things, things that hold different meaning, however shallow. Things like, "Cal is not your reality. Abby, and Janice and Steve, and me, we are your reality." Things like, "You are here, in this Night Vale, and you don't need to be scared." Things like, "People love you for exactly who you are." Things like, "You are my husband, and _I_ love you for exactly who you are. I love you so much." 

Eventually it becomes clear that words are not enough, so Carlos just holds Cecil as tight as he can while the shoulder of his lab coat dampens slowly. Thunder booms across the sky, which makes both of them flinch. A moment later, the thunder is followed by a ripping sound, as another piece of the sky tears open. 

"I don't want to lose you again," says Cecil, his velvet voice quivering. "I don't want to lose you like two years ago." 

Carlos feels his eyes stinging, but he doesn't want to let go of Cecil, and so the tears trail freely down his face. Outside, it starts to rain. 

"I don't know what's real," his husband sobs. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, please consider checking out my other Night Vale works! "The Oppressive Limitations of Time" is ongoing and features lots of angst, Cecilos, Night Vale weirdness, and dubious science. It's really fun to write.


End file.
